Here’s a rundown of the specialty box office this weekend, which saw seven new films enter the market place, including the latest from both Roman Polanski and Paul Haggis. In the end, it was Polanski’s “Venus In Fur” that had the best per-theater-average of the of the lot, while French import “Le Chef” — not to be confused with Jon Favreau’s “Chef,” which is still doing quite well — surprised with a strong debut as well.

The Debuts:

Debut Winner of the Weekend: “Venus In Fur.” Over a year after it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, Roman
Polanski’s “Venus In Fur” hit both theaters and VOD this weekend to the tune of $26,200 from 2 theaters. That made for a $13,100 average — the highest of any film in release save “Think Like a Man Too.” The French
language film — starring Polanski’s wife Emmanuelle Seigner alongside
Mathieu Amalric — adapts the 1870 novel “Venus In Furs.” Polanski’s
name alone clearly helped it find this decent opening, though
its steamy content might make it even more of a hit on VOD. This debut shows it’s likely be
tough for it to top the $2.5 million Polanski’s “Carnage” grossed back in 2011,
but that film was in English and starred the A-list likes of Jodie
Foster and Kate Winslet, so that’s not an expectation “Venus” should
have anyway. Things will be more clear when the film expands next weekend.

Holdover Winner of the Weekend: “Obvious Child.” Continuing to make good on its Sundance promise, A24 brought Gillian Robespierre’s “abortion rom com” from 18 to 55 theaters this weekend and saw more promising numbers. The film grossed $269,000, averaging a strong $4,891 — the highest of any holdover release.

“Obvious Child” will expand to the top 50 markets next weekend.

Holdover Loser of the Weekend: “The Rover.” A24 wasn’t so lucky with David
Michod’s “The Rover.” After a decent debut on 5 screens last weekend, the film was aggressively pushed to 599 screens, and failed to do much business. It grossed just $500,000 for a weak $835 average, not exactly promising in terms of pushing it much past its current $590,453 total.

“David Michod made an excellent film that received very strong reviews for its unique filmmaking and wonderful performances from Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson,” A24 said. “Unfortunately we were unable to find a broader audience this weekend, but have no doubt that the film will gain fans as we continue to push it out in the weeks and months ahead.”

Though notably, it’s actually a bit lower than the $23,446 Robert
Pattinson’s last attempt at indie cred — David Cronenberg’s
“Cosmopolis” — averaged last summer. That film ended up not even
grossing $1 million. However, “The Rov

Notable Milestones:

“Chef” crossed the $16 million mark — only the second specialty release of 2014 to do so after “The Grand Budapest Hotel”